July 2009

July 30, 2009

The other night I followed hubby to the Harley shop to have his bike serviced. During the drive I stayed an appropriate distance behind him so that if anything happened, I would be able to stop in time. However, no less than 10 cars merged in front of me and behind him...at an unsafe distance. When we got off the highway at our exit traffic was backed up. I stayed behind him again, about a car+ length away. A woman in a little Honda proceeded to come up on my right side and swerve in between hubby and I. When she stopped she was INCHES from hitting his bike. I felt like rolling down my window and telling her to back the hell off, that was my husband she almost hit. Then, because traffic was slow, she began creeping up on him every time traffic moved a bit. Several times she had to swerve to avoid bumping into him. Granted we were not going fast, so there would not have been serious harm if she had bumped him but that is not the point. Let me tell you, I almost put the car in park and got out to have a word with her. Believe me when I tell you that this is not at all like me. I am the most confrontation-avoiding person ever but for some reason this really got my feathers ruffled. Moments later we saw the reason for the traffic congestion. Can you guess what is was? Yup, an SUV ran into a motorcycle. The dude on the bike was in the ambulance, no idea how bad he was hurt.

Then, last night and today I made the mistake of searching Twitter for tweets related to Tourettes. The tweets that came back from the search amazed me! There were people making rude comments about actions they saw strangers making, tweeting profanity and joking that they had Tourettes, even laughing about a CNN report on a camp for kids Tourettes. That just really lit me up! I wanted to reply to each of those comments and tell them about how my 10 yr old cries because he gets such a bad headache DAILY from his head thrashing tic. I know that Tourettes is VERY mis-understood but that is no excuse to be so unkind, especially in SUCH a public forum! Tourettes is a terrible disorder and it effects children at a very vulnerable time in their life, during adolescence. We know how mean kids can be at that age to people without disabilities but imagine how horrible they are to the kids with disabilities! It breaks my heart to think that my children have to go through such hardships and that I cannot protect or shelter them from it!

Whew. I am now climbing down from my soapboxes. I will try not to be so negative again.

Sad, but glad too. I am ready to get home, get my puppies, sleep in my own bed but I will miss the ocean and the time with the kids. T. and J. are staying here for another week with my parents and brother/sister-in-law. C. and A. have to get back to their mother's house.

The thing that is bothering me the most is that I don't want to leave the boys here and I don't know why. They stay with my parents all the time. I know they will be well taken care of but still I want to keep them with me. That is unusual for me. Usually I am ready and need the break from the kids but this time I am not ready.

Today was a really lazy day. J. woke up with a slight temperature, stuffy nose, and sore throat. He woke me at 6:15 and I couldn't get back to sleep. It was a rainy & stormy morning, D. and I went kayaking at about 8:30 to see if we could find more dolphins but they were apparently sleeping in. We came back and by about 10 I couldn't hold my eyes open anymore. I convinced J. to come lay down with me and we ended up sleeping until 2pm! WOW! No pictures from our last day but I spent some good snuggle time with my baby and that is worth missing out on some pictures.

I have tons of photos to edit, I hope to work on that Sunday since we will be kid-less!

July 23, 2009

I have a huge fascination and infatuation with dolphins. If I could start my life over again I would go to college for Marine Biology and work at Sea World or Discovery Cove training dolphins.

Lucky for me, dolphins are everywhere at St. George Island. Today was like dolphin orgy day, they were everywhere and they were playful! Jumping, splashing, slapping their tails, it was awesome. We went out in the kayak and they were less than 15 feet from us! I tried to get some photos with a waterproof camera I bought at the drugstore, we'll see how they turn out.

At about 5pm this evening we were sitting out on the deck and another pod came frolicking by the house. In the span of less than 30 minutes I took over 200 shots (filled my camera card with RAW photos) but I got the perfect shot!

July 09, 2009

Wow, yesterday was quite a day! I thought this was going to be a calm, quiet week with the boys at their grandparents and just the little ones at home. I was wrong!

Yesterday morning as we were leaving for work, D. commented that his left eye was bothering him. I asked what was wrong and he described it like when you look into a bright light and you have a blind spot in your eyes after. By the time we got to work he said it had spread to both eyes. He didn't seem too concerned, even commented maybe there was something on his glasses, etc. So, I did not give it a second thought.

Once we got to work, I went about my usual stuff...put out fire #1, listened to so & so complain about this or that, put out fire #2, and so on. I came back up to my office. I saw D. in his office and he had his head down so I went to see what was up. He looked up at me and was grey and ashen looking and sweating. He said he felt terrible.

(isn't he handsome? so glad he is ok now!)

When I asked for specifics he said his left arm was numb, the blind spots were still there, he was nauseous, and he had cold sweats. I immediately got my purse and we left to go to the doctor.

On the drive I called our doctor to let her know what was going on. They told me not to even come to the office but to take him directly to the ER. So that is where we went.

At the ER he had a CT Scan, Chest X-ray, EKG, and lots of blood work. We waited and waited, as is the norm in the ER, right. Finally, the doctor came in and said that everything looked normal, there were no problems. No masses were detected in the CT scan which really was a relief to me. He gets LOTS of headaches and that has been a fear I have had. The EKG showed no irregularities in his heart. The blood work checked his heart enzymes for changes or damage to his heart and that was fine. They also checked his D-Dimer to see if he could have had or might have a blood clot and that was normal. They could find nothing wrong at all. The best the doctor could surmise was that he might have had a big fluctuation in his blood sugar because that can cause similar symptoms. He recommended D. follow up with his regular doctor in a few days and have a glucose tolerance test.

WOW! What a day. I am very relieved that there do not appear to be any problems with his heart or head! His family have a strong history of heart disease, in fact he loves to tell me that none of the men in over 4 generations have lived past 55...morbid dude! So, again, I am glad that all appears to be in good working order but now I am concerned about his sugar levels. Apparently there is also a strong history of diabetes in his family as well. He hates going to the doctor so it is going to be a challenge to get him to follow through on all of this. Luckily I told his Mom and Sister about what happened and they are already bugging him to go see the doctor and get everything checked out - gotta love family!